Partnership tactics

Instead of reaching buyers directly with ads or cold email, find 'connectors' one level up: people with a big network of your ideal customers, a strong reputation and trust with them, ideally good at sales. For Lancer these were Upwork coaches, who each sign 5-20 new coaching clients a month at $600-$1,000+ and have strong Upwork profiles, so upselling Lancer to their clients is easy. Terms: 30% lifetime commission if the coach signs, onboards and sets up the client on Lancer; 20% lifetime if they only refer. Playbook: 20-30% lifetime is standard; add upfront payments case by case based on network size, social following or existing deals with competitors. Track affiliates and pay monthly, automated, with Tolt; sales then arrive as inbound Stripe purchases or booked calls. Pitching one connector is a single high-ticket sales call instead of hundreds of calls for a $300/month product.

Lyzr told prospects honestly that it didn't know if the AI SDR would work, but asked them to sign a 12-month contract. Lyzr worked with AWS, which has a program to fund pilots, so the first three months were paid by AWS and the remaining nine by the customer; if it worked, they converted into a paying customer. This let them show the product with no upfront cost to the buyer, booked as contracted ARR.

George's first ever expense was a virtual assistant running the app's Instagram DMs, and he says it should be everyone's first hire. Before a sponsorship call with a smaller creator for FightAI, he noticed the creator's profile showed 'Followed by Cayden Henschel'. He cancelled the call and had the VA ask that creator to DM Cayden; Cayden replied, then answered George's email, they swapped numbers and became partners.

Partnered 50/50 with Cayden Henschel, the biggest wrestling creator. No posting minimums or vesting were set (George says he got lucky and recommends setting minimum posts and vesting). Cayden posts about the app (e.g. announcing the rebuilt product, stitching a coach calling out moves with 'this app will call out the moves for you'), and recorded all the combos in his own voice; the app randomly mixes them for drills.

Created a 'host' role for sports media personalities and athletes on X. Watched for people with large followings who were liking posts about the game, DM'd them and asked if they wanted to host. Hosting means writing the five daily questions. When their game goes live he posts 'we have this person as host today', and the host almost always retweets it. No payment mentioned.

Trained an in-house model that predicts a speaker's origin from ~10 seconds of speech and launched it as a separate web app (accentoracle.com): no download, no gate, no trial; record your voice and get results instantly, then get invited into the BoldVoice app. Shared it in the monthly investor update; a Korean angel investor posted it on Threads. After it spread, invested in accuracy and stability.

Before any code: cold-reached Hollywood speech/accent coaches (who work with actors) for differentiation. First coach, Ron, recorded lesson videos; ~12 beta users were manually sent the videos by email, emailed back speech recordings, and the coach gave asynchronous feedback. Used the pilot to pitch investors.

Same consumer product, different entry point: instead of acquiring users one at a time via paid media, sell licenses to organizations that already care about the problem (Christian universities investing in discipleship and student counseling, churches, therapists and treatment providers, employers). The institution is both the customer and the distribution partner, so two customers must win: the institution (buy and renew) and each individual (activate and keep using). Value prop to the institution: rollout help, redemption infrastructure (org codes), and an anonymized admin dashboard of usage. Waited until the product was multi-device and on iOS before pitching seriously. Founder-led sales; contracts pushed to 12 months. Inspired by Headspace selling into insurance plans. Example: Asbury University bought 200 licenses for student leaders as a pilot year, intending to roll out to all students.

Timberman-style game promoted a free bonus via AppAdvice (Indie App Santa is an alternative). On first open the app gives 2,000 free coins, then asks 'Want to double that by watching a video?'. Monetizes users immediately, and the coins pull them into the game, giving them something to lose.

API aggregators (e.g. Terra) couldn't give real-time, accurate heart rate. Bought a batch of Polar heart-rate sensors, shipped them to users and integrated via Polar's open SDK to prove the concept. Then got a call with Polar, bought the armband wholesale and passed savings to members. After about a year, asked Polar for better battery, easier charging and accelerometer data; Polar built it with a few other customers.

Waited until the app made ~$20K/month from ads so he had social proof and happy users, then approached big influencers (paying per story/reel would cost a fortune). Signed a revenue-share deal covering all revenue from Israel with a well-known fitness figure he knew personally; the traction let him negotiate terms better than 50-50. The contract is built on work timelines: a set number of content pieces and filming/recording days per month. The partners become the faces of the brand, making it harder to copy.

Not an affiliate program and no kickbacks (instructors don't want to look like sales reps). Instructors get the app free and their students get a discount. The team works closely with them: webinars, collecting feedback, instructors as beta users who get every new feature first. Built instructor-requested features, e.g. an in-app three-point fix for when GPS fails, which no competing app has. Signed American Sailing for the US. Similar programs with chandleries/boat shops, using in-store presence and QR codes.